Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have charlie in the shower now. I noticed the eye that is havigng trouble opening is a little swollen underneath the eye itself. I have been trying to swap the eye with some salene solution on a qtip all morning to see if that helps.

after his shower both of his eyes opened. I put the wrong plant back in his cage with him, but i dont want to mess with him again today. So ill give him another shower tomorrow and change his cage around so its correct again.

be careful using a q-tip. a piece of the cotton could come of and get in his eye. You can drip the saline directly into his eye, this way it is sterile, just make sure you do not touch the tip of saline bottle to his eye or anything else as will then be contaminated.

I just went thru hell with Cyrus and his dry eye. We just got the biopsy results back today. It seems he tore his eye (globe). Vet and I are guessing that he did with all his rubbing. So if you see him rubbing a lot stick your finger between the eye and whatever he is rubbing on so it is soft. I know you can't be there 24/7 but just be aware.

here is a link to his eye history. First pics are in November (he began keeping it shut in Oct. so I went thru the usual dry eye remedies (showers, humidifiers, etc.)) and the last were taken on Monday.
Cy's eye

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Chameleon Help & Resource Info
1.0 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon - Cyrus
0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna. She's now hanging from her big jungle gym in the sky
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
1.1.1 Side-blotched lizards - Ana and Stan
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skippy
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh, Died 4/21/06
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha, donated to science 4/4/06
?.? Pinktoe Tarantula - no name yet

Darn lele, that looks bad. Is Cy better now? how old is he?

So the shower seems to have helped a bit. Charlie is now able to open his eye when he needs to (eating or scared) but still keeps it closed most of the time. This is an improvment over early yesterday and the day before. I am going to give him another shower now and maybe tomorrow as well and try again to wash his eye out with the solution.

thanks for everyone's help

The last pics are how it still looks. He seems to be getting around better but has not eaten for a couple/few days. He was 1 year December 12th.

The first concern with eye problems (and this may have been addressed in an earlier post to you so forgive if I am being redundant) is Vit A deficiency. That was where I started. I gave him 2 doses (a week apart) of 8000 iu of retinol palmitate (vitamin A you buy at the drug store). The size I got (8000i.u.) I pricked with a pin, squeezed it into a cap then pulled it up with syringe and it came out to be about .1cc and I shot it in his mouth when I got him to gape. It made no difference with the eye so I moved on.

I am NOT telling you to do this without discussing with your vet. Everything I did was with my vet and the Vit A dosing I got from Gary Ferguson. So I don't know if you have tried this but you might want to read up on it and talk to vet and others here and elsewhere online. There is a lot of discrepancy about using preformed Vit A and beta carotene and the chams ability to use the bc vs. retinol.

Probably confused you more, sorry. :-/ Hope he improves!

Here is Cyrus last July in the unripened blueberry patch It's weird to look at his eye then - and now

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Chameleon Help & Resource Info
1.0 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon - Cyrus
0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna. She's now hanging from her big jungle gym in the sky
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
1.1.1 Side-blotched lizards - Ana and Stan
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skippy
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh, Died 4/21/06
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha, donated to science 4/4/06
?.? Pinktoe Tarantula - no name yet

Cy is such a nice color. I cant wait to bring Charlie back outside during the spring and let his colors return. I havnt seen him all day, but yesterday was another improvment. We will see how tomorrow goes. Thanks again for the help